Story of the Day: Poverty Forgotten in Anniversary of Katrina

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina's devastation, the mainstream media was compelled to acknowledge the extreme poverty in which many of our citizens live. Much talk followed about how America would now be forced to face this largely hidden nationwide scourge. Of course, this talk was just that. Talk. Both from the mainstream media and from our faux compassionate president. For neither had a track record to back up their words or instill any confidence they would actually address this problem. So it should be no surprise that neither did.

Now, one year later, as the mainstream media and our Opportunist-in-Chief suddenly remember that Katrina victims are still hurting and the government's response has been woefully inadequate (sorry, Rockey), the poverty this disaster revealed is conspicuously missing from their current discourse. 

Yet, here we are:

In the world's biggest economy, one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the U.S. Census Bureau aid on Tuesday, both ratios virtually unchanged from 2004.

The survey also showed 15.9 percent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 percent in 2004 and an increase for a fifth consecutive year, even as the economy grew at a 3.2 percent clip.

...

In all, some 37 million Americans, or 12.6 percent, lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $10,000 for an individual or $20,000 for a family of four. The total showed a decrease of 90,000 from the 2004 figure, which Census Bureau officials said was "statistically insignificant."

The last time poverty declined was in 2000, the final year of

Bill Clinton's presidency, when it fell to 11.3 percent.

Unfortunately, statistics have a way of desensitizing people to real-world consequences. So think for a moment about those numbers again: "One in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year." Now imagine sitting in a baseball stadium in which you could spot this percentage of poor because of a particular article of clothing, say, the color of their baseball caps or their T-shirts. Picture all of those people and then ask yourself how a country so wealthy can allow this to happen. How we can be spending $200 million a day fighting a war of choice (which is only increasing the terrorist threat), while here at home millions of babies go starving and the elderly have to choose between a meal and their prescription drugs.

If only we saw these poor every day as clearly as in that imagined stadium, or as we did last year in New Orleans before the cameras abandoned them. 

The mainstream media should be challenging Bush on what he's done to remedy poverty in this country as well as highlight measures he's taken that only further widen the gap between the rich and the poor. These Census Bureau statistics are the ammunition they need.

But it's up to those in the mainstream media to use them.

Reuters Data show one in eight Americans in poverty
By Joanne Morrison
Reuters

Comments

[vanessa]

thanks for noting this. absolutely shameful. all of them, hypocrites. and to see bush parading around new orleans now, it makes me sick. how can this not make americans hate him even more? i truly can't stand to look at that man's face anymore - he physically makes me ill!